Angry Mama
posted by Sybil Vane
I woke up in an exceptionally good mood given the gallon of fluid in my sinuses, and then I opened my inbox where this story had been sent by a friend and now my mood is shot.
"have become a necessity" is a telling rhetorical choice; always be suspiciousof passive voice of formulations that absent the agent in sentences about policy decisions. We are to believe there are no other ways to make up budget shortfall than to single out poor children in the most storied location of school-aged social hierarchies - the lunchroom?
And now I want to throw up too, Danessa. Especially when I read this:
If I never hear the word 'responsibility' again it will be too soon. That hag Michelle Malkin and her cronies (refuse to link) are crowing all over the internet about their goddamn "Tea Parties" today, where incensed tax payers historically and righteously protest the stimulus bill as an encroachment on their personal liberties and a series of rewards for home owners who failed to act responsibly. In Albuquerque, people are thanking the school board for shaming poor children because they see it as an appropriate consequence for parents who have the audacious irresponsibility to be poor.
Firstly, shame shame shame on you. These are children.
Secondly, just stop. All this blather about how unfair it is that some people get bailed out or people aren't made the suffer the consequences of their poor decisions - all this outrage is predicated on some fiction that shit was fair to begin with. Here's the word: shit is not fair. It isn't. Every single one of you has been unfairly disenfranchised and unfairly enfranchised. That is how this racist, sexist, heterosexist, postcolonial, globally capitalistic world works. There was never any premise of fairness on which everything operated. So screaming about your demands for fairness now, in addition to being indecorous, is a very thinly veiled disclosure of your contempt for the poor. You don't want thins to be fair or people to be more responsible. You just don't want the poor to be helped.
And I repeat - shaming children for what you perceive to be the sins of their parents is a mortal sin, I feel sure. In the lunchroom, of all goddamn places.
UPDATE: Miriam at Feministing was on this yesterday, I see. Fairly depressing and very interesting comment thread ensues, wherein many people insist that there is nothing at all shaming or objectionable about this policy.
Faced with mounting unpaid lunch charges, Albuquerque Public Schools last month instituted a "cheese sandwich policy," serving a cold cheese sandwich, fruit and a milk carton to children whose parents are supposed to pay for some or all of their regular meals but fail to pick up the tab.
Such policies have become a necessity for schools seeking to keep budgets in the black while ensuring children don't go hungry. School districts in Chula Vista, Calif.; Hillsborough County, Fla.; and Lynnwood, Wash. have similar policies.
"have become a necessity" is a telling rhetorical choice; always be suspicious
Second grader Danessa Vigil said she had to eat cheese sandwiches because her mother couldn't afford to give her lunch money while her application for free lunch was being processed.
Now, "every time I eat it, it makes me feel like I want to throw up," the 7-year-old said.
And now I want to throw up too, Danessa. Especially when I read this:
Some Albuquerque parents have pleaded with school board members to stop singling out their children because they're poor, while others are thanking the district for a policy that demands parental responsibility.
If I never hear the word 'responsibility' again it will be too soon. That hag Michelle Malkin and her cronies (refuse to link) are crowing all over the internet about their goddamn "Tea Parties" today, where incensed tax payers historically and righteously protest the stimulus bill as an encroachment on their personal liberties and a series of rewards for home owners who failed to act responsibly. In Albuquerque, people are thanking the school board for shaming poor children because they see it as an appropriate consequence for parents who have the audacious irresponsibility to be poor.
Firstly, shame shame shame on you. These are children.
Secondly, just stop. All this blather about how unfair it is that some people get bailed out or people aren't made the suffer the consequences of their poor decisions - all this outrage is predicated on some fiction that shit was fair to begin with. Here's the word: shit is not fair. It isn't. Every single one of you has been unfairly disenfranchised and unfairly enfranchised. That is how this racist, sexist, heterosexist, postcolonial, globally capitalistic world works. There was never any premise of fairness on which everything operated. So screaming about your demands for fairness now, in addition to being indecorous, is a very thinly veiled disclosure of your contempt for the poor. You don't want thins to be fair or people to be more responsible. You just don't want the poor to be helped.
And I repeat - shaming children for what you perceive to be the sins of their parents is a mortal sin, I feel sure. In the lunchroom, of all goddamn places.
UPDATE: Miriam at Feministing was on this yesterday, I see. Fairly depressing and very interesting comment thread ensues, wherein many people insist that there is nothing at all shaming or objectionable about this policy.
Posted at 4:58 AM
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